New COVID-19 guidance issued by state health officials ahead of Halloween

The Halloween costume of a performer at the drive-through Urban Legends of Southern California show.

By Andrew TurnerStaff Writer

Oct. 13, 2020 5:54 PM PT

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As families look ahead to Halloween, state health officials are issuing advice on how to celebrate the fall favorite safely.

Guidance issued by the state strongly discourages traditional activities like trick-or-treating or parties because of their potential to spread the coronavirus and difficulties related to contact tracing in the event of a positive case.

Families have been advised to observe Halloween in alternative ways at home or virtually. Some of the suggested activities include having a scary movie night, carving pumpkins, decorating at home and sharing tasty treats with members of your own household.

During the pandemic, drive-up events have also resurfaced as a popular outing. Such events, like drive-through haunts, drive-in movies or taking in the neighborhood Halloween displays by car, also fall within the guidelines.

“Some traditional celebrations such as the parties, costume parties and door-to-door trick-or-treating, we acknowledge, pose a risk of spreading COVID-19 and therefore are strongly discouraged,” California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said on Tuesday. “The whole act of going door to door in groups, ringing doorbells, digging into buckets of delicious candy create a risk of spreading COVID-19.”

Health officials continue to urge the public to engage in best practices that have been recommended throughout the pandemic. That includes wearing face coverings, physical distancing, good hygiene, limiting gathering and staying home if sick.

Additional guidance for small gatherings states that no more than three separate households should participate in the gatherings, they should not exceed two hours and they must be held outdoors.

“We just want to be able to provide, as we go into Halloween and a number of other holidays, important ways to reduce your risk, so that we make sure you protect yourselves, your families and your communities, as we go into what is going to be a hard time with COVID, given flu, given cooler weather and much of the increased spread that we’re seeing across the nation and the globe,” Ghaly said.

The Orange County Health Care Agency reported 178 new infections of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, in its latest numbers released Tuesday.

No new coronavirus-related deaths were reported for the second straight day. The total number of deaths since the onset of the pandemic remains at 1,341, while the total case count in the county now stands at 56,070.

Hospitalizations in the county were at 160. From that number, 57 patients were being treated in intensive care units.

The county healthcare agency reported 9,168 additional tests for COVID-19 within the last day, bringing the cumulative number of tests administered to 957,839. An estimated 50,130 people in the county have made a recovery from battling the virus.

Orange County remained in the second, red tier in the latest chance for counties to move between the four-tiered, color-coded system regarding virus transmission.

The new numbers have the county with seven-day averages of 4.6 daily new cases per 100,000 residents and a testing positivity rate of 3.5%. Those numbers come with a seven-day lag.

For a county to advance into the less-restrictive orange tier, it must have between one and 3.9 new daily cases and a testing positivity rate between 2% and 4.9%.

Below are the coronavirus case counts and deaths for select cities in Orange County: